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02/28/2013

Morning News for Thursday, February 28, 2013

From the Courthouse News Service:

The 9th Circuit blocked the shutdown of a California oyster farm that is fighting a permit denial from the U.S. government.

When Kevin Lunny bought the 1.5-acre oyster farm from its previous owner in December 2004, the deed came with a 40-year reservation of use and occupancy set to expire on Nov. 30, 2012.

The deal gave the National Park Service the right to issue a special use permit at the end of the term, but it instead left the fate of Drakes Bay Oyster Co. in the hands of U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

Related content here: KALW

Washington Free Beacon:

The Justice Department plans to celebrate the government’s “significant improvements” in administering the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) even though a majority of federal agencies, including the Justice Department itself, have ignored the Obama administration’s transparency guidelines.

The Justice Department will mark the fourth anniversary of Attorney General Eric Holder’s 2009 memorandum to federal agencies instructing them to revise their FOIA regulations and adopt a presumption in favor of openness, according to a press release.

Denver Post:

Colorado health and environment officials have ordered Loveland-based Abound Solar, the bankrupt solar-panel maker, to clean up hazardous waste at four Front Range locations.

The Abound facilities are storing thousands of “unsellable” solar panels and thousands of gallons of toxic liquids, according to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reports.

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02/26/2013

E&E Daily: Court allows oyster farm on national seashore to stay open until at least May

INTERIOR: Court allows oyster farm on national seashore to stay open until at least May

Jessica Estepa, E&E reporter
Tuesday, February 26, 2013

A California oyster farm that was slated to close this week will remain open until at least May thanks to a decision yesterday from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In May, the court will hear Drakes Bay Oyster Co.’s appeal of a denied injunction that would keep the farm open while its lawsuit against Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is still pending. Drakes Bay was supposed to shutter operations Thursday, but the court has granted an emergency motion that keeps the farm in the Point Reyes National Seashore open until it has heard the injunction case.

The decision drew praise from the company’s backers and a key Republican but criticism from environmentalists.

In the order, the court said it did so “because there are serious legal questions and the balance of hardships tips sharply in the appellants’ favor.”

The order cited another case in which the Alliance for the Wild Rockies appealed to the 9th Circuit after its injunction was denied. In that case, the appeals court reversed the lower court’s decision.

“We are grateful that the Ninth Circuit has chosen to allow Drakes Bay Oyster Co. to continue operating and recognized the hardships that would have resulted from shutting down the farm before its case could be heard,” said Amber Abbasi, chief counsel for regulatory affairs at Cause of Action, a government watchdog group that is representing Drakes Bay in the case.

Oyster farm owner Kevin Lunny said he is “thrilled” that the company — which finds itself in the center of an ongoing environmental battle — will stay open while his lawsuit against Salazar continues.

“Our fight has always been about more than just our business,” he said in a statement. “Our fight is, and will continue to be, about the great service Drakes Bay Oyster Farm provides to the community as an innovative sustainable farm, an education resource and part of the economic fiber of Marin County.”

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, likewise praised the decision.

“Interior attempted to flat out kill this oyster farm and its jobs by using misleading science and ignoring economic impacts,” Vitter said in a statement. “I applaud the Ninth Circuit for taking this first step to recognizing that the Interior agency bureaucrats, including Ken Salazar, almost put people out of work for no good reason.”

But the environmentalists who have pushed for the farm’s closure point out that a decision from U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers still stands. Earlier this month, Gonzalez Rogers denied the injunction, saying that the court had no jurisdiction over Salazar’s decision to end Drakes Bay’s lease (Greenwire, Feb. 5).

“We are confident the district court got it right when it decided that the Interior secretary had full discretion to let the lease expire and that the oyster company was unlikely to win its lawsuit,” said Neal Desai, Pacific region associate director of the National Parks Conservation Association. “The 9th Circuit Court’s decision today unfortunately delays by two months the ability for Americans to enjoy their national park wilderness.”

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02/26/2013

Morning News for Tuesday, February 26, 2013

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

A federal appeals court granted a reprieve Monday to an oyster farm that challenged the federal government’s refusal to renew its lease at Point Reyes National Seashore, site of a proposed marine wilderness.

Drakes Bay Oyster Co. has raised “serious legal questions” about the Interior Department’s action, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The court also said the company and its employees would suffer hardships by having to shut down while the case was pending.

More from the Associated Press.

From Forbes:

Appeals of NLRB decisions pending before the nation’s various Circuit Courts of Appeals since the issuance of the D.C. Circuit’s widely publicized Noel Canning decision have challenged the validity of the Board’s recess appointees and its resulting lack of a quorum.

Reuters:

A federal judge in Washington on Friday dismissed most of the claims brought by a small Chinese firm against President Barack Obama for squashing its bid to build wind farms close to a naval training site… The court did say Ralls could move forward with its challenge to how the statute at issue was implemented in this case. Ralls has argued that the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution entitles it to hear the reasons for the president’s decision.

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02/26/2013

Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Applauds 9th Circuit Ruling for Drakes Bay Oyster Company

Vitter Applauds Court Decision Blocking Interior’s Attempt to Close an Oyster Farm

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02/25/2013

Emergency Injunction Granted for Drakes Bay Oyster Company

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02/25/2013

Morning News for Monday, February 25, 2013

From the Washington Examiner:

By any fair estimate, the NLRB, which is funded with taxpayer dollars, has operated as a vehicle for Big Labor to achieve bureaucratic victories it could not otherwise see enacted in the legislature.

From Huffington Post:

Helen Grieco’s strange post “Tilting at Windmills” (Huff Post Green, February 20, 2013) takes a lot of cheap shots at Drakes Bay Oyster Farm. The post is riddled with errors and false implications.

Wall Street Journal:

Senate Democrats are in a hurry to confirm Jack Lew as Secretary of the Treasury before anyone notices his biography. Otherwise, liberal lawmakers might be embarrassed voting for a man who represents everything they’ve been campaigning against.

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02/22/2013

Cause of Action Statement on Chairman Hastings’ Committee Report

Cause of Action applauds Natural Resources Committee for their call to appoint permanent Inspector General at the DOI

WASHINGTON – Cause of Action, a government accountability and watchdog group applauds the House Committee on Natural Resources for their call to appoint a permanent Inspector General at the Department of Interior. CoA agrees that the acting Inspector General has “not been aggressive in blowing the whistle on misdeeds by the current Administration.”

Cause of Action’s Executive Director Dan Epstein called into question accountability at the DOI:

“On November 29, 2012 Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar denied the renewal of a Special Use Permit to Drakes Bay Oyster Company, a family-run, sustainable oyster farm located in Point Reyes National Park.  In the process of making this decision, Cause of Action has found that the Secretary failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, and the Data Quality Act among others.  In failing to investigate these violations, we have found acting Inspector General Mary Kendall to be negligent in her duties as Acting Inspector General.  Senator David Vitter even wrote a letter to the acting IG herself, expressing concerns that the OIG may have gone out of its way to protect Interior employees she was supposed to be independently investigating.

While it is evident the DOI significantly lacks oversight, accountability and transparency, acting IG Kendall has allowed actions at the department to go unchecked. Perhaps it would be best to look elsewhere for a more credible, reliable, and ethical permanent IG.”

For more information on Drakes Bay Oyster Company and their lawsuit against Secretary Salazar, the National Parks Service, and the Department of the Interior, click here.

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